5 ms·

This isn't the first time I've seen this allusion and I feel a little crazy each time. A major but mostly implicit plot point of that book was that only the pri

This isn't the first time I've seen this allusion and I feel a little crazy each time. A major but mostly implicit plot point of that book was that only the primer backed by a connection to an invested and nurturing adult was able to accomplish the goals of the project. The two that were purely automated failed. Now like, it's fiction not prophesy and you can get into various whatifs sure. But you can't dodge the fact that a refutation of this sort of project is itself contained in the work originating it! You have to engage with that!

madrox 3y ago
Technologists also got really into Stephenson's metaverse for a moment, too
famouswaffles 3y ago
You already answered it yourself. Neal's work was fiction. He had a story to tell. a lesson/narrative to convey. His intent "got in the way" of possible reality. Purely automated Primers didn't work simply because Neal didn't want them to in his story. There are no strong reasons as to why they shouldn't work. It's just human exceptionalism at work again. The readers are not Neal. They may, as is their choice be far more concerned with the Primer's potential than with any narrative Neal was looking to convey.
- giraffe_lady 3y ago
  Right sure, you'll notice I'm not taking a position about its viability either way right? I'm pointing out that this conversation needs to be started by the ones creating the "primer", not us. "We made a thing from a book, the author thinks it wouldn't work but here's why we do" is a reasonable place to start. "We're reproducing a canonically failed fictional project without further consideration" is unserious at best. Torment nexus-y at worst. https://twitter.com/AlexBlechman/status/1457842724128833538 https://twitter.com/AlexBlechman/status/1457842724128833538
  - famouswaffles 3y ago
    The point i'm making is that Neal's work was fiction, not a peer reviewed paper from published scientists. You don't need to dispute anything anymore than the wright brothers needed to dispute Icarus. Neal was trying to tell a story, not trying to be right.
    - giraffe_lady 3y ago
      The icarus comparison is apt lol. You don't need to dispute icarus to make an internal combustion flying machine. But when you start beeswaxing feathers to your cloak I'm definitely going to ask what you think about him.
  - lucubratory 3y ago
    I will give you time to respond to my other comment rather than pestering you over the thread, but when you do respond to it I think it adds to what I'm saying to make clear exactly where I'm disagreeing with you: Your position is that the author thinks TYLIP wouldn't work, I don't think that is supported by the text of the book, exemplified by the Mouse Army.
    - hosh 3y ago
      The mouse army were extensions of the automations of the Primer. Nell was able to lead and initiate things because she was the only one who really grew up. I remember someone noting a similar idea in Snow Crash -- that idea of biomass, in which that which lives becomes the extension of the machine, rather than the other way around.
- picadores 3y ago
  Its based upon a looping historic event though, the boxer rebellion..
lucubratory 3y ago
(spoilers for Diamond Age follow) Mmm, I understand what you're getting at but from what I remember of the book (it's been a few years, please forgive me) the two you're talking about that failed were relatively privileged little girls who in at least one case had separate tutors, school etc, and this played into why it failed, because they abandoned the TYLIP whenever it challenged them or made them uncomfortable. Moreover, TYLIP didn't just work with Nell, it worked with the whole Mouse Army, hundreds of thousands of young girls. Nell not having her birth mother and being functionally "adopted" by the ractor whose name starts with M was a huge part of Nell's character growth, and a parable about children failed by the system who can be so much more if they have someone to love them, but I don't think it was the only reason TYLIP worked. I do remember the book gesturing at what you're talking about though, specifically when it was examining the difference between Nell and those two other relatively privileged little girls. Moreover, my understanding was not that those other two girls had a purely automated TYLIP, it was that the ractors their TYLIPs automatically hired were short-term gigs, while Nell's was someone who stuck with her long term (and was invested and nurturing, as you say). In fact I'm not 100% sure, but I think the whole Mouse Army may have had fully automated TYLIPs that ended up turning out quite well for them. The general trend seems to be that young girls who had no other parental or authority figures bonded very well to the ~~wire monkey~~ TYLIP and developed well because they stuck with it, while those who had human alternatives chose those alternatives as soon as the TYLIP challenged them and therefore did not stick with it and succeed. Doesn't exactly leave us with a policy prescription, but it's still an interesting story. Basically, I agree that anyone seeking to replicate the TYLIP should at least have an answer for this objection because I see it raised every time TYLIP comes up, but the book's actual contents on this issue is pretty complicated and I'm not sure it's obvious that the books version of events is accurate to real life, or even that it maps cleanly onto a "human touch good, wire mother bad" framework.
- maxerickson 3y ago
  It didn't work with the mouse army, it made them into the mouse army.
  - lucubratory 3y ago
tialaramex 3y ago
They're not failed. The novel is about Nell, despite the title it's not really about the Primer, this is her story, and so we get relatively little insight into what happens to the other two recipients of the original Primer. Also, all three of the girls who receive the original Primer are interacting with humans via the Primer. Elizabeth is interacting with ractors assigned (expensively) to the work, potentially at random although realistically that's likely to be why she ended up being recruited. Elizabeth's "failure" to use your word is that she ends up recruited into Cryptnet, about which we know nothing - we see one other individual in the story who is, supposedly a high level member of Cryptnet but denies all knowledge of it and his motives are unknown but seem perhaps good. Fiona is interacting with her father, John Hackworth. The Primer's designer. That's what he's been doing for at least some of the time he was missing, he's her ractor, he's why Fiona's use of the Primer isn't costing much money. Fiona's "failure" is that she hooks up with Dramatis Personae, the outfit we see briefly whose true purpose is entirely unknown. Just as you might be disappointed mistakenly if you wanted your daughter to be a surgeon and she instead becomes a Nobel prize winning novelist, so Fiona's "failure" seems like a misunderstanding on your part. Yes, Nell founds a new tribe (her Mouse Army), and is recognised by the Victorian Queen - which is perhaps a more immediately notable achievement, something likely to be written in history books, but lots of people do important things without appearing in history books. Her ractor, Miranda is her substitute mother (we're never told AFAIK what happens to Nell's actual mother, she's just written out) but while Miranda is important to Nell, there's no reason to think John is less important to Fiona.
- giraffe_lady 3y ago
  I see your point. I should have been more clear too, I meant more like "failed to achieve the goals stated by its creators." I agree that none of them failed to achieve a significant impact in the lives of the girls, and I think this blind spot of the creators and success outside of it is a significant and interesting part of the story. But still my overall point remains! If someone is going to make a primer based on the ideas of the diamond age, they should be the ones to start this conversation. They should have a more sophisticated view of this limitation than an internet commenter who last read the book years ago. Not doing that is its own kind of failure.
hosh 3y ago
Exactly. That refutation stuck with me all these years. I remember being very much inspired by the Primer and poking around with that idea. But the more I explore things like, Consciousness, awareness, or ideas like regenerative education, unschooled, or John Gatto Taylor's book ... that refutation gets louder and louder for me. It's easy to say, this is a work of fiction, that Stephenson did not have sufficient vision or technical prowess to pull it off. That somehow, LLMs will overcome the problems, and that we can truly have autonomous education ... that it seems unlikely that somehow, someone who was fully engaged with the nurturing of a child through reading lines given to her was somehow able to do what the AI alone could not. Still -- being present makes a huge difference.
the__alchemist 3y ago
I would rate all 3 primary ones a success.(and, IIRC 1 had a full-time narrator the entire time, and one had one for a decade.) I'm a fan of the take that the book focused on Nell, but you could read 2 other versions, focusing on Fiona and Elizabeth respectively, that would be as interesting.

madrox 3y ago

Technologists also got really into Stephenson's metaverse for a moment, too

famouswaffles 3y ago

You already answered it yourself. Neal's work was fiction. He had a story to tell. a lesson/narrative to convey. His intent "got in the way" of possible reality. Purely automated Primers didn't work simply because Neal didn't want them to in his story. There are no strong reasons as to why they shouldn't work. It's just human exceptionalism at work again. The readers are not Neal. They may, as is their choice be far more concerned with the Primer's potential than with any narrative Neal was looking to convey.

giraffe_lady 3y ago
Right sure, you'll notice I'm not taking a position about its viability either way right? I'm pointing out that this conversation needs to be started by the ones creating the "primer", not us. "We made a thing from a book, the author thinks it wouldn't work but here's why we do" is a reasonable place to start. "We're reproducing a canonically failed fictional project without further consideration" is unserious at best. Torment nexus-y at worst. https://twitter.com/AlexBlechman/status/1457842724128833538 https://twitter.com/AlexBlechman/status/1457842724128833538
- famouswaffles 3y ago
  The point i'm making is that Neal's work was fiction, not a peer reviewed paper from published scientists. You don't need to dispute anything anymore than the wright brothers needed to dispute Icarus. Neal was trying to tell a story, not trying to be right.
  - giraffe_lady 3y ago
    The icarus comparison is apt lol. You don't need to dispute icarus to make an internal combustion flying machine. But when you start beeswaxing feathers to your cloak I'm definitely going to ask what you think about him.
- lucubratory 3y ago
  I will give you time to respond to my other comment rather than pestering you over the thread, but when you do respond to it I think it adds to what I'm saying to make clear exactly where I'm disagreeing with you: Your position is that the author thinks TYLIP wouldn't work, I don't think that is supported by the text of the book, exemplified by the Mouse Army.
  - hosh 3y ago
    The mouse army were extensions of the automations of the Primer. Nell was able to lead and initiate things because she was the only one who really grew up. I remember someone noting a similar idea in Snow Crash -- that idea of biomass, in which that which lives becomes the extension of the machine, rather than the other way around.
picadores 3y ago
Its based upon a looping historic event though, the boxer rebellion..

lucubratory 3y ago

(spoilers for Diamond Age follow) Mmm, I understand what you're getting at but from what I remember of the book (it's been a few years, please forgive me) the two you're talking about that failed were relatively privileged little girls who in at least one case had separate tutors, school etc, and this played into why it failed, because they abandoned the TYLIP whenever it challenged them or made them uncomfortable. Moreover, TYLIP didn't just work with Nell, it worked with the whole Mouse Army, hundreds of thousands of young girls. Nell not having her birth mother and being functionally "adopted" by the ractor whose name starts with M was a huge part of Nell's character growth, and a parable about children failed by the system who can be so much more if they have someone to love them, but I don't think it was the only reason TYLIP worked. I do remember the book gesturing at what you're talking about though, specifically when it was examining the difference between Nell and those two other relatively privileged little girls. Moreover, my understanding was not that those other two girls had a purely automated TYLIP, it was that the ractors their TYLIPs automatically hired were short-term gigs, while Nell's was someone who stuck with her long term (and was invested and nurturing, as you say). In fact I'm not 100% sure, but I think the whole Mouse Army may have had fully automated TYLIPs that ended up turning out quite well for them. The general trend seems to be that young girls who had no other parental or authority figures bonded very well to the ~~wire monkey~~ TYLIP and developed well because they stuck with it, while those who had human alternatives chose those alternatives as soon as the TYLIP challenged them and therefore did not stick with it and succeed. Doesn't exactly leave us with a policy prescription, but it's still an interesting story. Basically, I agree that anyone seeking to replicate the TYLIP should at least have an answer for this objection because I see it raised every time TYLIP comes up, but the book's actual contents on this issue is pretty complicated and I'm not sure it's obvious that the books version of events is accurate to real life, or even that it maps cleanly onto a "human touch good, wire mother bad" framework.

maxerickson 3y ago
It didn't work with the mouse army, it made them into the mouse army.
- lucubratory 3y ago

tialaramex 3y ago

They're not failed. The novel is about Nell, despite the title it's not really about the Primer, this is her story, and so we get relatively little insight into what happens to the other two recipients of the original Primer. Also, all three of the girls who receive the original Primer are interacting with humans via the Primer. Elizabeth is interacting with ractors assigned (expensively) to the work, potentially at random although realistically that's likely to be why she ended up being recruited. Elizabeth's "failure" to use your word is that she ends up recruited into Cryptnet, about which we know nothing - we see one other individual in the story who is, supposedly a high level member of Cryptnet but denies all knowledge of it and his motives are unknown but seem perhaps good. Fiona is interacting with her father, John Hackworth. The Primer's designer. That's what he's been doing for at least some of the time he was missing, he's her ractor, he's why Fiona's use of the Primer isn't costing much money. Fiona's "failure" is that she hooks up with Dramatis Personae, the outfit we see briefly whose true purpose is entirely unknown. Just as you might be disappointed mistakenly if you wanted your daughter to be a surgeon and she instead becomes a Nobel prize winning novelist, so Fiona's "failure" seems like a misunderstanding on your part. Yes, Nell founds a new tribe (her Mouse Army), and is recognised by the Victorian Queen - which is perhaps a more immediately notable achievement, something likely to be written in history books, but lots of people do important things without appearing in history books. Her ractor, Miranda is her substitute mother (we're never told AFAIK what happens to Nell's actual mother, she's just written out) but while Miranda is important to Nell, there's no reason to think John is less important to Fiona.

giraffe_lady 3y ago
I see your point. I should have been more clear too, I meant more like "failed to achieve the goals stated by its creators." I agree that none of them failed to achieve a significant impact in the lives of the girls, and I think this blind spot of the creators and success outside of it is a significant and interesting part of the story. But still my overall point remains! If someone is going to make a primer based on the ideas of the diamond age, they should be the ones to start this conversation. They should have a more sophisticated view of this limitation than an internet commenter who last read the book years ago. Not doing that is its own kind of failure.

hosh 3y ago

Exactly. That refutation stuck with me all these years. I remember being very much inspired by the Primer and poking around with that idea. But the more I explore things like, Consciousness, awareness, or ideas like regenerative education, unschooled, or John Gatto Taylor's book ... that refutation gets louder and louder for me. It's easy to say, this is a work of fiction, that Stephenson did not have sufficient vision or technical prowess to pull it off. That somehow, LLMs will overcome the problems, and that we can truly have autonomous education ... that it seems unlikely that somehow, someone who was fully engaged with the nurturing of a child through reading lines given to her was somehow able to do what the AI alone could not. Still -- being present makes a huge difference.

the__alchemist 3y ago

I would rate all 3 primary ones a success.(and, IIRC 1 had a full-time narrator the entire time, and one had one for a decade.) I'm a fan of the take that the book focused on Nell, but you could read 2 other versions, focusing on Fiona and Elizabeth respectively, that would be as interesting.